Alloy Orchestra February 23, 2013

Alloy Orchestra's elaborate score brings three early Buster Keaton short films to life. The Butcher Boy features Keaton's first screen appearance and captures the artist’s astounding comedic talents, honed since he was a child on the vaudeville stage. Working for star actor and director Fatty Arbuckle, Keaton was given a surprising amount of freedom to improvise skits and help write the film. Good Night, Nurse!, another Arbuckle-directed short, is one of Keaton and Arbuckle's oddest and most mature works, a surreal treat that depicts Arbuckle locked up in a sanitarium. Keaton wrote, directed and starred in the last film, The Play House, a masterpiece with outrageous gags, balletic physical comedy and sophisticated camerawork.